(Preached March 28th, 1813.)
TEXT: JEREMIAH xvii. 5-8, AND xviii. 7-10.
MY devout hearers! Through an extraordinary occurrence we find the order of our discourses on the suffering Saviour interrupted, and our to-day’s meeting devoted to a very different subject. How deeply have we all been moved by the events of the last weeks! We saw march forth from our gates the army of a people nominally allied to us, but our feeling was not that of parting with friends; with thankful joy did we feel at last the long, heavy pressure removed from us. Immediately after that came the troops of another nation, nominally at war with us; but with the most joyful enthusiasm were they received when they made themselves known as the friends of the king and the people. And when, not long after them, we saw our own warriors also returning, then no one could any longer doubt, and the word passed joyfully from mouth to mouth: Thanks for the heavenly, unmistakable tokens which God the Lord has given through the fearful turmoil of war in the North; thanks to the noble and brave military leaders who, disregarding the appearance of disobedience and the infraction of the letter, and acting really according to the mind and spirit of the king, dared to take the first decisive step towards freeing us from the intolerable bonds under which we had so long been held; thanks to the king, who when this favourable moment presented itself, could not do otherwise than let his feeling, which was entirely the same as ours, bear sway; thanks to all this, the great change, the transition from bondage to freedom, is in preparation. But openly as wo thanked God with joy among ourselves, it was not yet time to do so publicly; for the king had not yet spoken. At last sounded forth to us the long and impatiently expected royal word, which, although certainly the public papers have deeply impressed it on us all, we shall as certainly hear once more with joy and emotion when it is read to-day by the king’s command from every pulpit in the city. It runs thus. [Here followed the summons of the king, To my people.]
Thus the king; and I count it only fair to abstain from speaking in laudation of this royal word. It is still fresh in all our hearts, the delight in the certainty of battle which this word gives us, in the high and noble spirit which here gives utterance to what all the best in the nation had long felt and thought. And now, hardly had we heard this glorious call when our ear was greeted by the triumphant shout of a city loved and revered by every German heart, which was the first to be freed from the direct yoke of the enemy; and, as the crown of all, we saw our beloved king himself come among us with a feeling—we may freely admit it to ourselves—that can never before have lifted up his heart, for he never before had an opportunity of feeling so deeply and truly that which is the source of the highest happiness and exaltation to a ruler, the purest harmony between his will and his people’s wish; we saw him lead forth on the way to meet the enemy the army which, at his command, had been consecrated and blessed for the battle by prayer. This then, the departure of our army to battle, to decisive battle for what is highest and noblest, is the subject which, as it assuredly fills and stirs all our hearts, is to occupy our attention at this hour, so that for us also this holy war may begin with humble, elevating thoughts of God, and that our hope and our joy may be sanctified to Him.
I have taken these words of the prophet on which to found our meditation, not at all, as it may possibly appear, in order to institute a comparison between ourselves and that nation against whom we are going to war; but merely in order rightly to distinguish what is conflicting in our own history, that we may thus be led up to the essential part in the great change in which we are rejoicing. For, my friends, the joy that befits us in this place is not joy merely because the oppression and suffering under which we have long sighed are now at an end; not the joy which paints for us in anticipation bright pictures of future prosperity which we hope to attain; here this must be only second and last with us. And if, nevertheless, this contrast still presents itself to us, let us apply it to ourselves in this way, that we feel, as the prophet represents to us, that in the individual, but still more in the mass, changes in the lot depend on the rise and fall of intrinsic worth. Yes, let us here consider the great change entirely from this point of our worthiness before God. On two things included in this, these words give us light; first, what, in this aspect, is the exact significance and the real nature of the change; and second, what we must therefore feel called on to do.